Happy New Year everyone. And as usual, thanks so much for following along. I wish you all a happy and productive 2019. For many of us 2018 turned out to be a difficult year, but let’s all be positive and look forward.

I first met Ilan Stavans in the late 90’s when the New York Times hired me to photograph him for this article. He and I have kept in touch over the years. I found myself thinking of him while I was photographing Charles F.’s possessions for the Willard Suitcase Project. There seemed to be a connection and so I was able to help Ilan get access to the New York State Museum storage facility to have a look at what Charles brought with him to Willard. Ilan was very moved by what he saw and felt, and on the drive home we spoke about a collaboration, although at the time we had no clear idea as to what would develop.

Several months ago we started talking in earnest about what we could each bring to a project about Charles, and it is exciting to be able to say that we have signed a contract with SUNY Press to produce a book. I’ll have more details soon, but we are both really excited about this. We are looking at an early 2020 publication date, which will coincide with an exhibit that will travel.

This is just one of many collaborative efforts that has come out of my work with the suitcases, and it is one aspect of the project that makes me especially happy. It is so nice to have been an inspiration to creative and interesting people and to be a part of their art.

For those of you who are on instagram, I am starting to post suitcase photos @willardsuitcases on what I hope will be a regular basis. You can also still see my goofy side @jonkcrispin.

Yesterday morning I drove out to Ithaca to begin work on the suitcases documentary that I am working on with Peter Carroll and Deborah Hoard.

After a quick lunch at the Lincoln Street Diner, Peter and I drove up to Willard to shoot some B-roll in the Cemetery.

It is a special place to visit in so many ways. When I took this photograph, the smell of mint was intense. It seemed odd that it was so healthy this late in the year.

We are in the beginning stages of figuring out how to document my work with the suitcases. The point of this early filming is to to create a short piece that will help us raise funds. We will probably run another Kickstarter campaign, which I expect will be up in the early part of next year.

It was a beautiful day on the lake. Chilly and breezy, which is to be expected in late October. I can’t emphasize enough what an amazing spot this is. The fact that 5,776 former Willard patients are buried here makes for an emotional experience.

With the help and encouragement of the wonderful Peggy Ellsworth and Craig Williams, we were given access to the Romulus Historical Society to film the interview today. It worked out really well (even though the heat is currently off in the building).

Peter is a genius in setting up lighting for interviews. This is a frame grab from the video. I am looking a bit stern in this shot, but I do smile from time to time. It was a really productive day and I was reminded of how great it is to work with Peter and Deb.

The historical society has a few suitcases that for some reason never made it into the main collection in Albany. It was nice to be able to use them in the setup.

I have driven past this winterized travel trailer on Route 96 repeatedly and finally stopped to take a few photos. I love how the little wheels are covered too!

Today is St. Crispin’s Day. I usually try to drink a load of Cognac to assist me in feeling a connection to the French and English soldiers who died at the battle of Agincourt. If this post is a bit wordy, I’ll blame it on the bottle of Hennessy that seems to be emptying at a rather steady pace. Check out the amazing Olivier in the 1944 version of Shakespeare’s Henry V.

I am working on an interesting collaboration on Charles’ cases and hope to have some exciting news soon.

He had an interesting collection of ties.

There are quite a few Penny postcards in the collection as well as some interesting hand- written notes. You can see the New York State Museum’s catalogue number (in pencil) on the upper right side of the white paper.

Thank you all for following this project. I will be devoting a ton of time to the suitcases later this month as I continue to develop ideas for getting the photos out to a wide audience. And Peter Carroll, Deb Hoard, and I are beginning to work hard on a preliminary short film which we can send to funders for the larger documentary that we plan to produce.

Julianne Wick Davis has been working on a song cycle based on my photographs of the suitcases for the past several years. Here is a link to a previous post. She is nearing completion of the process and is starting to move to the next stage.

I am very excited to announce that she has put together a preview of the work that will take place at Joe’s Pub in New York City on the 3rd of May. Here is a link to where tickets can be purchased. If you are in the New York area and can make it to the show, it should be amazing. I’ll be there and I am hoping that Peggy Ross can make it as well. We are so excited about this. The space is not huge, so I would encourage you all to get your tickets as soon as possible. Hope to see you there.

The following Thursday (the 10th), I’ll be back on Roosevelt Island for another talk at the RI Historical society. More on that soon. That one is free and open to the public.

This was the first case I photographed. It was the 17th of March 2011. Craig Williams had given me permission to gain access to the collection and I was very excited. I remember setting up my wrinkled background and fiddling with my lights. It struck me at the time that it would be interesting to document the entire process of shooting the cases, including what they looked like after the museum had wrapped them back up after the conservation process.

This is part of what I saw when I finally got the case open. Quite a way to start the project. This is what I posted about that first day.

Today at about 2.30 I finished editing all of the cases that we have shot, and uploaded the final photographs to the suitcases site. This case belonge to Lawrence R. I especially like the headline in the Democrat and Chronicle.

This day has been a long time in coming. We will see what happens with the project in the fullness of time, but I am very excited and happy to have made it this far.

Connie Houde was kind enough to take this picture of Peg and me on that last day of shooting. I think champagne might have been involved.

There are too many folks to thank for all of the support, encouragement, and love that I have felt since I began photographing the suitcases in 2011. But I think of you all the time. Thank you all.

This morning I uploaded the last of the photographs of Rodrigo’s possessions. His cases were really interesting and you can check them all out here.

Rodrigo maintained a strong connection his native Philippines, and also had an interesting collection of books.

There were several items pressed between the pages of a few of them.

This hat was pretty cool and the white object at the bottom seems to be shark’s teeth strung together into some sort of necklace.

Peg and I shot our last suitcase on Monday the 9th of November 2015. I will be editing that work in a day or two, and that will be it as far as what was in the New York State Museum collection. Craig Williams seems to remember that there are a few cases that never went to the Museum that are in the Romulus Historical Society. If so, we’ll try to track those down and photograph them. I photographed the first case (Freda B) on the 17th of March 2011, and this has been quite an amazing ride. I just want to thank all of you who follow the project for all the good wishes, support, and interest. Now that the editing is just about done, I’ll be spending much of my time moving on to the next stage. I’ll also take a minute to thank Peggy Ross again for her continued help. I couldn’t have done this without her.

I am back to editing more of Rodrigo L’s papers. This is an amazing photo postcard. / Rodrigo lived in Salt Lake City during his high school years. Many of his yearbooks are in his collection as well as a ton of materials related to his Pilipino experience in the US .

He came to the American West sometime in the early part of the 20th Century, which makes me wonder what his experience adapting to his new life was like.

I have just three more shoots to edit. I have a feeling that when I finish that part of the project I will be very emotional and a little bit at sea. Still lots to do though, including finding a publisher and museums / galleries for exhibits. I started shooting the cases in March of 2011. It has been quite a run. Thanks for following.

I have posted about Madeline before and her possessions represent a very interesting life before she came to Willard.

Throughout this project I have consciously tried to avoid obvious links between the objects in the collection and any sort of connection to being institutionalized, but I found it interesting that this was the only recording among Madeline’s things.

She came to Willard with a fairly complete record of her life in New York City, including her time studying at Columbia University and Hunter College.

She seemed to be interested in philosophy. There were quite a few references to Bergson in her papers.

Her handwriting was really lovely.

Her diaries were especially complete.

I searched online for this poem thinking that she might have copied it as an exercise in writing in English (her first language was French), but nothing turned up.

In any event, it is an incredible piece of writing.

It is especially interesting how well her life was documented in photographs, and that most of the images also had their original negatives. Looking at the dates in her diaries, many of these were taken in the 1920s.

The fox stole around her neck in the picture on the right is something that one doesn’t see anymore.

I have stayed in the Prince George Hotel on W. 27th Street twice in my life. Once in high school with my friends Jay, Jeff, and Dennis. That was an interesting trip! And once sometime in the 80s shortly before it became an SRO. Quite interesting as well.

You can check out the photos of Madeline’s cases at the Willard Suitcases site. Click on “The Cases”, scroll to the bottom and click on Madeline C. Be sure to click “view all” as there are many more than 25 images. The site was hacked into recently and everything seems to be sorted now. Huge thanks to Steve Fox at Born Digital Web Design for getting it fixed. He’s the man if you need a photo site set up.

Well, this is quite amazing. I had an incredible week in Galveston, which was capped off by a lovely dinner with the resident Osler Scholars, after which this lovely bust of Dr. William Osler was presented to me . I have never in my life as a photographer felt so respected and acknowledged. I spent the week talking about the suitcases in a variety of venues and was able to hear so many interesting comments on the collection. It is difficult for me to say how important this week was to me, but it was such a positive, affirming experience that I am at a bit of a loss for words. Huge thanks to Dr. Dwight Wolf and Rosemary Lindley for everything they have done to support the project.

Before coming home, Cris and I took the time to go out to Moody Gardens. It was so cool to see these giant river otters.

Back home now and trying to decompress from an intense week. A little stressed today as it seems the willardsuitcases.com site is having problems. I have been on the phone most of the day trying to get it sorted. The link above still is still functional but if you just type in the regular url it is broken. Arrrrgh. Hope to get it sorted soon.

I apologize for the long gap in posting about the suitcases. It has been an incredibly busy time. I have been devoting most of my mental energy getting prepared for a series of talks at the University of Texas Medical Branch that are scheduled for next week. This is a huge honor for me, as I will be a visiting Osler scholar. When I was in Galveston in 2016 presenting to NAMI Gulfcoast I was approached by Dr. Dwight Wolf about returning to speak at UT to the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences department. Cristine and I fly out on Sunday (weather dependent), and there are events scheduled for the whole week.

Here is a rundown.

Monday the 15th – I’ll be speaking about the suitcases and my other work at the Galveston Arts Center from 6-8 pm.

Tuesday the 16th – Osler Club Grand Rounds, Temple B’nai Israel, 3008 Avenue O, Galveston. I believe this is open to the public but reservations are required.

Earlier that day I will present the project to residents at UTMB. This is not open to the public.

Wednesday the 17th – IMH Colloquium at UTMB during the lunch hour. Jennie Sealy Hospital. This might be open to the public, I’m not sure.

That evening I’ll be speaking at the Galveston Historical Foundation about the suitcases and my other documentary institutional work. 6-7 pm at Menard Hall, 3302 Avenue O, Galveston.

Thursday the 18th – There is an open mic event with Dr. Steve Fisher with a display of photographs of both of our work. Dr. Fisher has been photographing the collection of medical specimens at UTMB. Should be interesting. 3rd Floor Old Red. I’ve been told it is an amazing building.